Least Family-Friendly Holiday Movies

The 12 Least Family-Friendly Holiday Movies

Most Christmas movies, or at least the ones aimed at kids, are pretty lame. Tasked with teaching children valuable “lessons,” they’re packed with more syrupy-sweetness than an entire package of candy canes. The Night Before is not one of those movies. That’s because The Night Before is a Christmas movie for grown-ups. Or at least grown-up man-children.

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen and Anthony Mackie as three lifelong friends whose annual tradition of Christmas Eve debauchery culminates in one last, final blowout, the movie’s got lessons, sure. About family, friendship, and the magic of the holiday season. But by balancing those with hard-R humor, the result is more akin to a drug-, booze- and dick joke-fueled version of A Christmas Carol.

So, inspired by The Night Before, we’ve come up with 12 days’ worth of holiday-themed options that won’t make you feel like you’re drowning in Hallmark moments and visions of sugarplums. And if you find yourself looking for a more adult upgrade on your annual It’s a Wonderful Life viewing this holiday season, it’s not too late to add a few of these to your Christmas list. Just don’t invite Grandma. (Or do. Who knows, maybe she’s a big Harold & Kumar fan.)

Santa Claus Conquers The Martians

This one earns an honorable mention not because of its content — Martians abduct Santa hoping to bring Christmas cheer to their home planet — but because in order to properly “enjoy” the ‘60s B-movie that’s widely considered to be one of the worst movies of all-time, you’d have to ingest almost as many drugs as Rogen’s character does in The Night Before.

A Christmas Story

The original holiday counterprogramming classic, A Christmas Story has become almost as much of a yuletide staple as It’s a Wonderful Life. But don’t let the annual 24-hour TBS marathon fool you. The movie still has some bite, even if it isn’t quite as subversive some 30+ years later as it originally was back in 1983. But as a more darkly comic (and honest) take on the holidays than its saccharine Capra-inspired counterpoints, it’s the classic Christmas movie for people who hate Christmas movies.

The Hebrew Hammer

Forget the handwringing about the so-called War on Christmas, this blaxploitation-inspired spoof features a literal war on Hanukkah after Santa’s murdered and replaced by his evil son Damian (Andy Dick), who sets out to destroy both Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, leaving Christmas as the lone December holiday. Starring Adam Goldberg as the titular hard-boiled Jewish hero tasked with saving the day, The Hebrew Hammer skewers both Jew and Gentile alike, making this goofy Hanukkah-themed Shaft parody decidedly — and proudly — un-PC.

Friday After Next

Just to be clear, Friday After Next is not what you’d call a great movie. In fact, it’s arguably the weakest of the trilogy. But dropping Ice Cube and Mike Epps’ Craig and Day-Day and rest of the Friday crew into a Christmas season setting still earns it a place on our list. When the pair gets their presents stolen by a burglar in a Santa suit on Christmas Eve, it kicks off another round of familiar antics that, even if it’s not up to the original’s standards, still makes for welcome counterprogramming to listening to your uncle read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” for the hundredth time. (Unless your uncle happens to be John Malkovich.)

Rare Exports

Many a Christmas has been ruined by kids finding out the “secret” behind Santa Claus. But this 2010 horror/comedy from Finland takes parents’ worst nightmare and ratchets it up a notch, after a yuletide archeological dig unearths the truth about the man (or, well, being) behind the myth. Turns out, Santa’s actually a terrifying, vengeful ancient demon with a legion of white-bearded little helpers, making Rare Exports a clever, twisted origin story for the “real” Saint Nick. Sort of like the Nightmare on 34th Street.

Anything by Shane Black

Lethal Weapon. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. The Long Kiss Goodnight. Iron Man 3. Shane Black and Christmas go together like eggnog and rum: good on their own, but way more fun mixed together. But with the exception of Iron Man, none of his other Christmas movies have exactly been family-friendly. They have, on the other hand, all been uniformly great, and together, make for a pretty solid alternative holiday movie marathon. Once the kids are in bed, of course.

Die Hard

OK, so maybe it’s not technically a Christmas movie the same way as something like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but that’s exactly what makes Die Hard one of the best holiday movies of all-time. And body count aside, the Bruce Willis action classic about the most exciting company holiday party ever thrown otherwise checks off all the right boxes: it’s set on Christmas Eve, features a holiday-inspired soundtrack, and the best Christmas villain since the Grinch in Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber. Someone even says “Ho ho ho.”

Gremlins

With the cute, cuddly Gizmo and its PG rating, well-meaning parents in 1984 could be forgiven for thinking Gremlins was ostensibly a kids’ movie. But just add water and a midnight snack and those adorable mogwai quickly turned into nightmare fuel for any unsuspecting tyke, as the mischievous little green monsters wreak havoc on the movie’s Norman Rockwell-esque small town. Along with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, parental backlash against Joe Dante’s Christmastime horror/comedy inspired the creation of the PG-13 rating, to warn prospective parents that this holiday classic isn’t quite as family-friendly as it might look, no matter how many fuzzy Gizmo dolls and toy lines it spawned.

Black Christmas

Nowadays it seems like just about every holiday has its very own slasher movie, but back in 1974, this Canadian cult classic was among the first of its kind, predating John Carpenter’s iconic Halloween by four years. Loosely based on a series of real-life murders in Montreal, Black Christmas tells the gruesome tale of a deranged stranger who terrorizes a sorority house over winter break. And while a 2006 remake upped the Christmas-themed kill count, the original will forever remain a part of holiday horror lore.

A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas

A Christmas-themed threequel for the Harold & Kumar franchise — in 3D, no less — sounds like exactly the type of terrible idea that would earn a studio head a stocking full of coal (or worse). So the fact that A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas actually turned out better than expected is something of a Christmas miracle. That said, thanks to the series’ signature blend of stoner comedy and raunchy laughs, it’s not exactly holiday fun for the whole family. Unless you want to be the one to explain to your nieces and nephews why Santa’s doing bong hits.

Silent Night, Deadly Night

Maybe it’s just the stress of holiday shopping or all that extra family time, but Christmas seems to have inspired the most horror movies of any holiday. There’s ones about Christmas-hating serial killers, slash-happy Santas, possessed snowmen, demonic elves — you name it. And while 1984’s Silent Night, Deadly Night wasn’t the first to feature a Santa suit-wearing killer carving up the names on his naughty list, it’s certainly one of the most infamous — inspiring protests from angry parents and even being pulled from theaters thanks to a controversial ad campaign that played up the ho ho horror. “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” never sounded so sinister.

Bad Santa

Packed with more eff bombs than a dad tangled up in Christmas lights, Bad Santa takes our top spot as the ultimate hard-R Christmas movie thanks largely to Billy Bob Thornton’s take on an alcoholic, sex-addicted, less-than-jolly old Saint Nick. But despite the gleefully offensive, endlessly-quotable dialogue and Thornton’s concerted efforts to make the Grinch look like a lightweight by comparison, this Terry Zwigoff-directed tale of a self-destructive career con man who disguises himself as a mall Santa actually ends up being kind of — dare we say — sweet.